Pinta Crewing: The Final Word

My time as a crew member on the Pinta ended on April 28. It ended prematurely and abruptly, as I had agreed to stay until May 16 - ten days after we arrived in Georgetown, SC.

However, even before the abrupt ending, I was having doubts and second thoughts about the whole Nina and Pinta project. The Columbus Foundation purports an interest in historical information, but in truth, it has only a peripheral interest in the public's knowledge and awareness of Columbus' 15th century explorations.

This is evidenced by the fact that crew members, who spend nine hours each day the ships are in port conversing with shipboard visitors, receive neither training nor supervision in their information sharing. Indeed some crew share little more than data gleaned from historical novels that are far more fantasy than history. Some supplement on-board data with information gleaned from the Internet, but the ship management personnel demonstrate zero interest in the factual accuracy of the information passed to the shipboard visitors.

Indeed, the only interest in shipboard visitors I saw expressed by management personnel was to insure that all visitors paid their admission fee. This, of course, reveals the actual focus of the Columbus Foundation.

The abrupt ending to my time as a crew member on the Pinta occurred on the evening of April 27. A drunken Captain Morgan and I engaged in a one-sided shouting match over why I was reading a book, and was not the third member of the crew attempting to fix a leaking drain in the galley sink. (I am sure three heads stuck under the sink would have greatly facilitated that repair, but to a drunk, ridiculous things may seem reasonable.) Captain Morgan was so drunk he thought it was morning, when it was 8:30 P.M. He kept shouting that I should not "mess with my captain in the morning".

After Captain Morgan left the galley, one of the crew members easily fixed the leaking sink, and I went to bed.

During the night, the captain's son came to my bunk, shined a light in my face, and asked if I was alright. I told him that I was fine, but that I would be leaving the boat as soon as we got to Beaufort, SC. He asked me if I heard what the captain had said, and I said, "Yes, I heard him say he was sorry he yelled at me, but that hardly was sufficient because no one could talk to me the way the captain had, and I was still leaving." The captain himself did not pay me the courtesy of a personal apology, and only mumbled a "morning Fred", as I passed him on the dock while I was carrying away my belongings.

Why am I writing this? It is my hope that potential volunteer crew in the future will read it and beware. The boat management team, the captain and his son, have not the slightest understanding of how to work with volunteers. Nor are they willing to be educated. If they were, some things would be readily apparent to them.
1. You inform volunteers of exactly what is expected of them.
2. You train those volunteers so they can perform as expected.
3. You supervise the work of volunteers to ascertain that they are performing as expected.
4. You have a system in place to correct and improve volunteer performance.
5. You treat the volunteers in a way that shows respect and appreciation for their work.

Captain Morgan and his son demonstrate a woeful lack of expertise in the area of volunteer personnel management. Rather, they seem threatened by any suggestion, as if their domain had been invaded. It is sad because they fail to realize much of the potential available to them in their volunteer crew.

Now, for those of you who want to discount this whole posting as "sour grapes", ask any of the crew members who served with me if I failed to carry my share, or if I performed poorly or grudgingly.